Microsoft Surface Pro Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 5, 2013 9:00 PM ESTBattery Life: The Downside
Despite having an integrated 42 Wh battery (similar in size to the 3rd and 4th gen iPads with Retina Display), battery life is a real sore spot for Surface Pro. Haswell is really designed to drive platform power down to very low levels, which should help close the gap between ARM/Atom based tablets and Core based tablets. Unfortunately, Haswell for tablets won’t hit until the third quarter of this year, which forced Microsoft to use Ivy Bridge.
In our tablet benchmarks, I never saw Surface Pro break the 6 hour mark on a single charge. In most cases I’d expect to see 5 - 6 hours out of Surface Pro in light, tablet usage. Video playback was especially disappointing as Surface Pro managed to use more power here than during our web browsing battery life test. I suspect this might have to do with the relative power efficiency of Ivy Bridge's video decoder. It'll be interesting to see how Haswell does in this department.
I also put Surface Pro through some of our new notebook battery life tests for 2013, and here it didn’t fare too bad. I only have Acer’s 13-inch S7 to compare to but Microsoft managed 3.85 hours in our medium workload compared to sub-3 hours for the larger Ultrabook:
| Windows 8 Notebook Battery Tests | ||
| Battery Test | Acer Aspire S7 (13-inch) | Microsoft Surface Pro |
| AnandTech 2013 Light | 4.00 hours | 5.2 hours |
| AnandTech 2013 Medium | 2.88 hours | 3.85 hours |
This is easily the biggest disappointment with Surface Pro. You just won’t get the all day battery life you do with an ARM based tablet out of this design. I expect Microsoft will have a solution to this problem with Haswell, but not until the end of the year.
Charging
Surface Pro retains the same large, magnetic power connector as Surface RT. In fact, Surface RT’s power adapter will still charge Surface Pro. The Pro model does however come with its own 48W adapter. It’s a nice looking, but large and still fairly traditional two piece power supply (brick + detachable wall cable). There’s no sophisticated cable management other than a tiny hook to help keep the device end of the cable together. One neat feature is the power adapter does feature an integrated USB port for charging your smartphone.
Under max charging load the power supply will draw around 27W at the wall. Microsoft included a 48W unit in order to be able to charge and power the device without slowing down charge time. It took me 2.692 hours to charge Surface Pro from completely empty to 100% with no additional power draw at the wall. The quick charge time is pretty nice and about the only reprieve here when talking about Surface Pro's battery.
I did notice something odd with the first power supply Microsoft sent me. When charging through my power meter, I picked up some interference in the capacitive touch screen itself resulting in around 10% of my taps not being recognized. Microsoft supplied another power supply that seemed to resolve the issue.
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Morgifier - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - link
The design of the (as yet unreleased) Asus Transformer Book seems preferable, with the external keyboard providing rigidity, additional battery life and extra storage. I wonder if Microsoft have considered this?Although I'm yet to use Windows 8, I do like the idea of device convergence...
cmikeh2 - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - link
I totally agree with you that Transformer Book seems a lot nicer (especially with the bundled dock) but they're sort of in two different product classes since the Transformer Book (1.9 kg) is about twice the weight of the Surface Pro.althaz - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
If you want something that is three-in-one (desktop replacement, tablet, notebook replacement), the Asus or the Samsung ATIV with similar specs to the Surface Pro are a much better choice.For me though, I never, ever want to type with this thing in my lap. I want to watch videos or play games (mostly Football Manager) while I'm on the train. I want to hook it up to a bunch of XBox controllers and a TV for playing on the multitude of old-school emulator with my buddies, I want to plug a keyboard and mouse into it to play starcraft at my mate's place and my wife wants to surf the internet and play angry birds at home.
I have a desktop at home and at work, this is for everything else which means I don't need the dock (the touch cover would be handy for typing things up when I'm say, on an aeroplane or on a holiday though), or the added weight and price it includes.
I can't wait to get one of these!
jeffkibuule - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
The Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro has typical Samsung tablet build quality. I wouldn't touch that thing with a 10" pole. Perhaps their Ultrabooks are of better build quality, but the ATIV isn't it.LetsGo - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Nothing wrong with my Samsung 7.7 Tabs build quality.When they update there 8" Note to a Octo-core I will get one, a tablet should be light therefore being made out of plastic is good design.
B3an - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Does anyone know when the Transformer Book is actually going to come out? Been waiting for this for ages. Asus are taking the piss. Might just go for Surface Pro.PubFiction - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
IMO, the whole point of surface was to bring to market something the other OEMs were not doing. Transformer is a great form factor, but so what ASUS whom is a big MS partner is already making it why would MS step in and build another transformer when one already exists? The draw to surface is the light ultra thin keyboard. But are you going to get the best typing experience from that? No, of course not, will it be better than typeing with the softboard? Yes.Surface brings one major thing to the table, the ultra thin tablet / laptop combo device. It can do everything, but of course in certain situations it will not be the best device. But compared to the price of other ultra books it is very good. It sports a good CPU, touch screen, digitizer etc. Ultimately you see an over abundance of negative posts which are simply stupid because they compare apples to oranges. People compare this to a mac book air, which has no, touch screen, no tablet mode, and no digitizer. Well duh if all you want is an ultra book then this isnt for you but its ridiculous to even bother comparing a device which is so different and lacks so many features.
What we really need is for the OEMs to fill in the gaps in product lines not try to compete with each other in products that already exists. What we are still missing is a gaming level convertible. Alienware, samsung series 7 gamer, clevo et al. Lenovo has built alot of combinations of tablets and laptops but now we need something sporting at least a 660M that can flip into a tablet and has a built in digitizer.
My biggest complaint with this device has to be the lack of slot for the digitizer pen, the big strength of surface was the compact all in one nature where the keyboard is not a clumsy accessory but an integral part of the device. The pen should have followed that lead.
PubFiction - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Of course the other issue is non remvable battery which means if you are dropping $900+ on this it wont last more than 2 years before the battery craps out like all sealed batteries.Netscorer - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
most ultrabooks have non-accessible battery. Not sure what your point is. If it is important to you to be able to access memory, storage, battery and other internals, buy a regular laptop, not a tablet.And realistically, batteries last more then two years. The performance may become degraded after some time but I've had batteries lasting 3-5 years on all my devices and by the time they are truly dead, the device is typically obsolete and needs replacement, anyway.
spencer.p - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
That's true.I would recommend perhaps getting a Surface Complete warranty for it (if you get it from the Microsoft Store). $99 for two years of accidental, too.